Playground Etiquette
Is it appropriate to share food with other children?
by The Babble Staff
December 26, 2006
Playground Etiquette
THE BABBLE TAKE
The social rules of the playground can be as intricate as those at any cocktail party. For parents, that is. The difference between the playground and the adult world is that here you not only have to navigate social interactions with other adults, but with toddlers as well. Many treat the playground as an opportunity to teach their kids about socializing and indeed human interaction at its most unvarnished is often displayed there. If the articles below are to be believed, kids steal toys, parents steal wallets and everyone freely passes judgment on the parenting styles of others. Some say to teach your kid not to hog a slide or a swing and consensus is to leave well enough alone when it comes to misbehavior in others. That is, unless people endanger their kids, or hand out foods containing refined sugar, in which case all bets are off. Another point on which all connoisseurs of playground behavior agree is to not share food without asking the permission of the parents. Not only might one parent's snack be another parent's poison, you also don't want to be the cause of an acute allergic reaction. Any way you slice it, there's a fine line between looking out for your toddler and finding yourself in a in a fist-fight with somebody else's four-year-old.
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Today's Parent
"It may look like fun and games, but the parents chatting and the children chasing each other in parks are heeding an unwritten code of behaviour. According to New York urban anthropologist Setha Low, who studies public spaces, we should be able to do whatever we like in our playgrounds. However, Low notes, 'people are willing to compromise those rights in order to be there together.'"
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1 Mother 2 Another Blog
"There are a few rules that most every parent acknowledges — even unconsciously — to keep playground time safe and fair. There are, of course, those parents who choose to ignore those rules, but newcomers often simply don't know better until they've been there a while and gotten the lay of the land. So here's a brief rundown."
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Parents Magazine
"I've discovered that the playground isn't quite the toddler utopia I'd imagined. Kids steal toys, hog the swings, and think nothing of pushing each other aside on their way through the crawl tunnels. To get a handle on how to deal with these sticky situations and more, I talked to etiquette experts and been-there-done-that moms. Here's their wise advice."
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Wichita Eagle
"Hanging upside down on the monkey bars? Climbing up the slide? Jumping off the swings? Those traditional playground antics have gone the way of chalkboard slates at most schools. Concerns about injuries, fights and other problems have led schools to adopt stringent rules that outlaw many of the recess activities parents remember from childhood."
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Family Magazine
"After a more than two-decade-long absence, circumstances moved me to revisit a realm that had changed little since my childhood: the playground. What had changed was me, because this time around, I was a mommy, and my job was to see a small person safely through a territory which, I quickly realized, I wasn't sure I could safely navigate myself."
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